Thursday, May 24, 2007

we started off on wednesday by checking out some street art in the mitte neighborhood of east berlin which has been fairly active in the past couple of years from what i've heard. we were lucky enough to stumble upon on really great wall/gated area that had been curated (in sort) by 4rtist.com. after that it's was back to the u-bahn for a trip into west berlin.

charlottenburg, was the name of the neighborhood and it was a great departure from what we had come to know so far. it was much more of a commercial mecca, with malls and western chains lining most of the boulevards. we had a couple of things planned: (1) check out the zoo. knut the polar bear fever was running high throughout berlin. that little baby was on everything. however, by the time we got to the zoo we realized that we would only have a few hours (and at 20 euros a person) we might not make the best use of our time at the zoo. so instead we headed off to men, war & peace at the helmut newton gallery. however, we first made a stop at witty's, which was an organic hot dog stand next to a giant mall, for some "bio-curry wurst." the last stop in this area for the day was over at stilwerk. which is a design mall that robin wanted to check out. afterwards, we headed back to the u-bahn to go and check out the area near unter der linden.

we got off the train at potzdamer platz which is sort of becoming a times square of sorts, there is a new giant sony center and a huge daimler chrysler building as well as some other banking buildings. it was pretty quiet by the time that we got there however. we looked around breifly and then headed up the street to see the brandenburg gate and the reichstag. both of which were rather impressive. however, it had been a long day and a storm was blowing in so we again headed over to the u-bahn and boarded the train towards home. when we got to the station, the storm had started in earnest so it was a rather wet walk back to the apartment.